Although India, on one hand, is witnessing the aftereffects of demonetization, it is paving a way to digital currencies and emerging blockchain technology by hosting its first Blockchain India Summit on 6 December 2016, in New Delhi.
The event, organized by Arifa Khan, CEO of Zero Field Labs and founder of Fintech Storm, will bring together visionary leaders in blockchain including Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum; Cryptographers, academia from (Indian Institute of Technology) IIT Madras, Tech industry pioneers like Microsoft, Tech Mahindra, IBM, in order to explore the potentials of the distributed ledger technology, the release said.
"I am excited to see the growing interest in Ethereum and blockchain technologies coming from India; the world is finally waking up to the great potential that the technology has particularly in emerging markets, and I look forward to seeing developments with the technology grow in the months and years to come,” Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum said.
Recently, Indian private banks including ICICI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Axis Bank have performed their blockchain experiments. Pioneers in the bitcoin ecosystem including Vitalik Buterin; Adam Back, founder of Blockstream; and Wences Casares, founder of XAPO; among others believe in India’s massive potential.
Arifa Khan combines domain expertise in blockchain technology as well as in the banking. She has started her investment banking career with UBS in 2004 and trained extensively in New York and London. Khan is now leading efforts for Indian banks to form an independent regional blockchain consortium.
Earlier, Dr. Raghuram Rajan, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor stated that bitcoin is ‘fascinating’, and that RBI could release its own digital currency, but that such an issuance could take years to undertake if attempted, perhaps 10-20 years.
“Virtual currencies will certainly get much better, much safer and over time will be the form of transaction. That’s for sure,” Dr. Rajan said.
CEO of Indian bitcoin firm Unocoin believed that the demonetization, that led the Indian government to ban high denominations of 500 and 1000 rupee notes to curb corruption, will see a consistent increase in the country’s adoption rate and bitcoin trading. The first blockchain summit is supposed to witness a boost in India’s cryptocurrency ecosystem.
